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Help please - Trane or Carrier WSHP?

The compressor in my AC unit has died and quotes I've been provided with indicate that it is cheaper to replace the entire unit rather than replace the compressor. The unit is a TRANE WSHP model GEHB018.

I received a couple of quotes to replace it with the equivalent (though slightly larger 2 Ton unit) Trane GEHB024 and an equivalent Carrier Unit which I've been told will fit in the tight space available.

No, the carrier unit is not the same thing, and it never will be. The trane Water source heat pumps are an issue all on its own. Ive worked on literally hundreds of them. We at trane have had a problem with these since they came out. Warranty only lasts a year and the problems continue on past that. Unfortunately we do not continue service for free past that point. My suggestion would be to find a different unit altogether. Even if you get a new one from Trane, you will still have problems. We have excellent chillers, rooftop units, unit ventilators, and split systems, but our water source heat pumps are having problems.

Carrier WSHP's are one and the same with Climatemaster.....Climatemaster makes them for carrier and rebrands them with the Carrier Label.....Check out the Climatemaster units.

Thanks. I've already had a Carrier installed and is is FAR AND AWAY SUPERIOR in every respect to the Trane Unit. I've had no issues with it and it works really well. I did go with a slightly larger unit (2 tonne vs 1.5 tonnes for 1126 sq feet of space) so that no doubt has something to do with it.

Your Canucks did well last night, hope they do the same and can force a game 7 tomorrow.

No, the carrier unit is not the same thing, and it never will be. The trane Water source heat pumps are an issue all on its own. Ive worked on literally hundreds of them. We at trane have had a problem with these since they came out. Warranty only lasts a year and the problems continue on past that. Unfortunately we do not continue service for free past that point. My suggestion would be to find a different unit altogether. Even if you get a new one from Trane, you will still have problems. We have excellent chillers, rooftop units, unit ventilators, and split systems, but our water source heat pumps are having problems.

I'm not a Trane guy, and don't play one on TV, either. But I have to pile on and agree with ice_cube_30's estimation of Trane heat pumps. The design is interesting, allowing a lot of configurability in the field. Unfortunately, that's just about the only complimentary thing I can say about them. I work in a complex with hundreds of WSHP's, many brands ... and the Trane units are the worst of the lot. Lots of leaks due to tubing chafing. Replacement expansion valve power heads due to tubing chafing. Cracked tubing and braze joints due to the way the tubing is anchored ... or not anchored. Sticking reversing valves in record numbers. Electronic control boards for which no manuals are available. Hard to work on. I could go on ... and already have. Thank your stars you found another make that would fit.

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More interesting BS with the Trane WSHPs, just in case anyone is searching the forum for info. I do lots of work in a building that has the "Boilerless Controls" version. The installing contractor sold them to the GC and the Owner as, "Geothermal with Built-In Supplemental Heat". (The installing contractor lied about the Supplemental Heat - it's actually "Replacement Heat," and is useless in this geothermal installation.) System design was spec'd for 30*F inlet water, in a building in the US Northern Tier. A nice piece of installing-contractor idiocy.

One very cold day, after a nasty electrical glitch, the loop pumps failed to run, but the heat pumps ran just fine - for a few minutes. Many thanks to the creator of glycol - no broken water HXs.

Some of the thermal disc suction temperature switches stopped their heat pumps, and some didn't. Those that didn't probably didn't because they came from the factory with inadequate clamps to give good thermal contact with the suction line. Trane apparently realized they had something of a problem with the clamps ... because they also wrapped each switch with two turns of duct tape to try to tighten them. It didn't help much, or for long.

Many of the switches that did stop their heat pumps never closed again, requiring replacement of about 15 switches before those heat pumps would run. Needless to say, we didn't replace those switches with Trane replacement parts, substituting a refrigeration control with a cap-tube sensor that could really be strapped down. Robertshaw model 3030-506. Cost was half what we'd have paid at Trane, and IMHO a much superior switch. The control's detent center position is set for the same temp as the original Trane switch.

We also added a suction pressure switch, because the suction temp switch was the only low side protection device. Good protection against loss-of-charge requires either a suction pressure switch or a low temp switch at the expansion device. These units were equipped with neither. So they have cooked a lot of compressors when units lost their charge due to the previously mentioned problems with tubing chafing and cracking.

When the inadequate rotary compressors fail, we replace them with scrolls, gaining 10*F rating in the allowable spread between low-side and high-side operating temps.

You may be asking yourself by now, "Why go to all this trouble?" Sadly, in this particular apartment complex, many of the heat pumps will be difficult to replace with anything that doesn't configure like the Trane units do. So we've decided we'd rather make the original units better, rather than replace them with something that's essentially comparable to the original.

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I deal with a lot of heat pumps. I tried all kinds. McQuay seems to be the one that everyone likes.

Your "everyone" and my "everyone" must be two different batches of people.

Sorry ... I can't get very enthused about McQuay water-source heat pumps. The "Mk IV" circuit board's interface is somewhat bizarre - forcing the use of a control sequence that is non-standard in the heat pump world. If you want to use a loop-water-shut-off valve - as you should in a large commercial building's variable-speed pumping system (yes, large commercial buildings should absolutely use variable-speed pumping systems) it's necessary to add relays to operate the valve that are not required by the standard compressor/reversing-valve control sequence.

What's worse ... there is nothing on the entire piece of equipment that tells an installing or servicing technician what control inputs will result in what control outputs on the board. It's treated as a "black box". I have seen dozens of McQuay heat pumps improperly interfaced to commercial-building DDC systems because of the unorthodox control sequence.

Fortunately, there *is* a decent manual available for the Mk IV control board - more than I can say for Trane's "DeLuxe" control board.

Particular models of McQuays have also proved to be very noisy. My company had the dubious pleasure of paying a part of the replacement cost for a small flock of McQuay heat pumps because, after installation, they couldn't meet a very reasonable noise specification. The local McQuay distributor shrugged the noise problems off. Needless to say, we didn't replace 'em with more McQuays. Grrrrr!!

Last edited by fixitman; 07-09-2012 at 07:10 PM.
Reason: Bad grammar.

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